


leave our memories behind

by piecesofgold



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Essos AU, Everybody Lives, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-14
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-08-23 10:14:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16617020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piecesofgold/pseuds/piecesofgold
Summary: he is not your sona voice in the back of his mind whispers cruelly, and arthur drops his hand immediately, breath shuddering.you are only his protector.he wonders how often he will have to remind himself of that.





	leave our memories behind

**Author's Note:**

> good god i feel like I’ve been writing this for 50 years.
> 
> please blame these posts for the organ pain they caused me:
> 
> 1) http://lyannas.tumblr.com/post/165033708609/if-homeboy-had-his-mom-around-he-would-be-a
> 
> 2) http://harritudur.tumblr.com/post/170663566662/request-the-essos-au-arthur-and-jon-over-the
> 
> enjoy!

i.

they have been in braavos a month when a baker says it.

arthur is at the marketplace, running over the list of things in his head lyanna told him they need against the coins in his pocket, how much they can afford on the wages of a sellsword and laundress.

(they’d sold his white cloak at the harbour, along with what he had managed to collect from starfall, jewels and fabric and gold plated crockery. now he wore the ringmail of a sellsword, a cloak with a hood long enough to hide his face from prying eyes.)

the babe - jon, his name is jon - is cradled in a sling against his chest, grey eyes peering curiously up at arthur as he makes his way through the stalls.

lyanna has insisted he take him this morning. “we have been here a month, arthur. we need to make him familiar with this -“ she’d waved a hand “ _our_ home.”

it hurts her to say, he can tell; it hurts him too. it is a raw wound, salt being added whenever they ask for news from the westerosi ship captains they come across.

the targaryen’s are all either dead or exiled; robert baratheon is king, and cersei lannister is to be his queen. the stark girl was declared dead by her brother and buried in dorne (lyanna’s arms had tightened around little jon hearing that. arthur knows she hasn’t been sure if ned would keep her secret). they are careful about who they ask and how often, though - they may have both been declared dead, but the risk of being found out even now is still very real. lyanna cuts her hair short with a dagger, arthur hides dawn under the floorboards of the small house they share. they are not lady lyanna stark of winterfell or ser arthur dayne  
of the kingsguard and starfall here; they are lya the laundress, arthur the sellsword and little jon.

jon is beginning to fuss, now, growing impatient against the pushing and heat of the market crowd. arthur shushes him softly, cradling his head and smoothing his thumb over the boy’s forehead. “i know, child, we’ll be home to your mother shortly,” arthur promises him. jon cries when arthur pulls his hand away to pay for a loaf of bread.

the baker eyes the sling across arthur’s chest. “your son is wanting his mother?” he asks, braavosi accent thick.

and - arthur freezes.

 _son_. a son is not something arthur dayne had often thought about, since taking the white cloak. even now, it had not occurred to him that of course passing strangers would think jon is _his_. who else could possibly know his father is rhaegar?

in his haste and panic, he takes the bread from the baker and says, “yes, thank you, i should take my leave.” and flees.

jon has long since stopped crying by the time arthur leans against the wall a vacant ally. he pulls the sling back, and blue eyes meet slate-grey. arthur brushes his thumb over his small cheek, heart is in his throat.

 _he is not your son_ a voice in the back of his mind whispers cruelly, and arthur drops his hand immediately, breath shuddering. _you are only his protector_.

he wonders how often he will have to remind himself of that.

ii.

jon’s first name day has not long past, he is learning his words and has taken his first tentative steps - his little hands had gripped arthur’s fingers as they moved slowly across the wooden floor, before letting go and stumbling forward into his mothers eagerly waiting arms. she had swept him up in delight, spinning her son around with a cry of joy. arthur’s face had hurt from smiling, unable to stop the pride swelling in his chest.

it is times like this that are the hardest to remind himself, because how else can he feel when jon reaches a new milestone, when he curls up and falls asleep on arthur’s chest, when he pulls on arthur’s clothes and calls him _papa_ , arms reaching to be held?

jon is not his son, as lyanna is not his wife - no matter how many times the sight of her and the sound of her laughter makes his breath catch.

arthur had never dreamed of having a son of his own, and yet...whenever he holds rhaegar’s, he feels as if a piece of his heart has fallen into place.

iii.

they only ever talk about it once.

jon is five, growing more and more with each passing day, and lyanna has long since taken arthur to her bed.

he’d stopped her the first time she tried to kiss him, insisting about _my vows, my lady_. lyanna levelled him with a measured look. “i am no lady, arthur,” she reminded him. “and you are no knight. we swore no vows. do you think i do not love you? do you not love me? are we not already living as man and wife?” 

she was so close, and willing, and yet still he didn’t allow himself. “lyanna - my age - surely you don’t want a man so old -“

she’d laughed bitterly at that. “you seem to have forgotten what little that meant between the prince and i, and he was four-and-twenty.” she hadn’t moved further away. “i’m not a child anymore, dayne. i’m a woman grown, a mother, and i know what i want.” and that was that, really.

jon is asleep, lyanna is halfway there in arthur’s arms, when arthur suddenly asks her, “do you see him, in jon?”

lyanna tenses. she’s doesn’t need to ask of whom he speaks, though his name is never mentioned. “you’ve never asked me before.”

“i’m sorry, i shouldn’t have -“

“no, i don’t. do you?” lyanna turns to face him. “you knew him much longer than i.”

arthur hesitates. jon has lyanna’s likeness - and thank the gods for that - with not a trace of his birth father. although -

“his calm.” he says quietly, “how he doesn’t raise his voice even if you’ve done him some wrong. he has rhaegar’s calm.” he pauses, the name so unfamiliar in his mouth after all this time. “which is the best thing for him to have, i suppose.”

lyanna’s laughter surprises him. “ _rhaegar’s_ calm?” she puts a hand on his cheek, fond. “arthur, you sweet fool, that’s not rhaegar, that’s _you_.”

“me?”

“he knows nothing of rhaegar, how could he? he knows only you.”

the words hurt more than he expected. “i am not his father, lyanna.”

now she looks angry. “ _you are_ his father in every sense of the word.”

“except one.”

“by far the least important one! you are raising him, are you not? you hold him and tend to him when he is sick, you will teach him to fight and hunt and be a good man. you are the one he calls father, because you _are_.” there’s a fire in her eyes when she finished, desperate and insistent. arthur cannot speak for fear of weeping.

“we will not speak of this again,” lyanna says, softer. “i think you understand now.”

“maybaps he is not your son, then,” arthur finally speaks. lyanna frowns.

“what?”

“how can any child of yours be so well mannered?” he jests, and lyanna rolls her eyes, unable to hold back a smile.

“or perhaps i just know how to raise good sons,” she returns, turning back around in his arms. “and it seems you do too.”

iv.

jon likes to admire dawn out of its sheath. he watches arthur polish the sword with wide eyes, in their yard under the cover of darkness.

“when you’re older,” arthur promises him one evening, “i will let you polish it, too. perhaps even wield it.”

jon is almost bouncing with excitement. “truly, father, you will give me dawn?”

he is ten, now, and lyanna is teaching him how to ride. he and his mother are as thick as thieves, one and the same - and yet it is arthur jon will come to with secret questions he won’t ask his mother.

“will you buy me a sword? a real one?”

“mother hid the sweet cakes, but i want another. can you give me one?”

“father, why do you and mother look so sad when you speak of home? is this not our home?”

some questions are easier to answer than others.

he _does_ teach jon how to fight and hunt, but he also teaches him what his own father did not. he teaches him to be chivalrous, to be kind to women, to defend the innocent and follow his heart.

arthur knew these lessons, but had never used them when it mattered most. he hopes jon will be better than him.

jon is eleven on arthur and lyanna’s wedding day.

it’s a small ceremony, neither in the light of the seven or the old gods - they left their gods in westeros. there are a few trusted witnesses, a priestess and a ditchfire, and arthur’s hands tremble slightly as he removes lyanna’s maiden cloak - simple grey and white, no direwolf symbol in sight - and replaces it with his purple and silver one. jon surges forward and is swept into his mothers arms. arthur takes them both in his - his wife and his son.

v.

arthur dreams of things that cannot be.

he dreams of a life where jon and little allyria - although he supposes his sister is not so little anymore, since he last saw her - are raised side by side, a life where jon inherits starfall and becomes the sword of the morning. a life where they could have more children, more siblings for jon. it’s all folly, he knows. allyria is across the narrow sea, hardly older than jon and ruling in her own stead if the rumours of edric’s disappearance are to be believed. jon’s siblings are long dead, and his birthright is more daunting than starfall. but there is no joy in reality, and plenty to be had in dreams.

arthur is mistaken in one instance, though. jon is one-and-three when his sister is born.

jon delivers her - arthur worked that day upon his wife’s instance. “jon is here should anything happen to me, fool. go, make an honest living yourself.” she’d shooed him off with a kiss.

a neighbour informs him, and arthur rushes home immediately, to find the three of them in the bedroom - lyanna, sweating and exhausted, nursing a babe in her arms, and jon, at the foot of the bed with his head in his hands, breathing deeply.

lightheaded, arthur approaches him. “jon.”

the boys starts. “i-i’m sorry, father. i wasn’t sure - i didn’t know-“

“jon, my sweet, we’re fine. you did so well.” lyanna reaches over and rubs her sons back. “come, the two of you. don’t you want to meet your daughter, arthur?”

he does. gods, he’s almost frightened to even touch her. she’s so much smaller than jon had been. she has a full head of dark hair already, her skin dark olive like her father’s. a part of him already knows her eyes are grey - like her mothers, her brothers.

lyanna lets him take their daughter from her arms, and he cannot speak.

“jon,” lyanna calls her son to her side, and be obliges, eyes fixed on the babe in arthur’s arms - his _sister_. “what will you name her?”

jon looks up at his mother, surprise clear on his face. “you want me to name her?”

“you delivered your sister, my boy, not many men can say that. i want you to name her.”

jon turns back to arthur and his sister; she is fussing in her wraps, and neither jon nor arthur can take their eyes off her.

“aurelia,” jon says, confident. “her name is aurelia.”

vi.

jon is one-and-seven, taller than his mother and almost as tall as arthur, an incredible swordsman in the making, when they decide to tell him.

he’s watched jon grow up into a man, with his mothers look and arthur’s demeanour (“the best parts of us both,” lyanna once proudly remarked. “my beauty, and your heart.”).

they talked about, extensively. jon had hinted a desire to board a ship and sail out, just to _see_ the world.

when arthur gently asked him about it, he blushed and turned his head away.

“is it what you want?” arthur pressed.

jon laughed nervously. “no, i - it’s just a silly idea - crossing the sea to see more...” his voice was wistful, and he avoided arthur’s gaze.

he mentions it to lyanna that night, and she pales. “he wished to leave? for westeros?”

“to _travel_. you know how he loves that boat darius is always giving him rides in. he wants to see new shores, i believe.”

he can see lyanna struggling with herself; she wants to be angry, to tell him no, but doesn’t want to restrain him, knows her son is a man grown now, capable of making his own decisions.

there’s something else, too.

“perhaps it is time to tell him the truth of our past, too.”

lyanna looks at him sharply. “you mean rhaegar,” she says carefully.

“he has a right to know, lya.”

“why? why should he know? why should he be burdened with mistakes we both made, mistakes rhaegar made? the past is done, arthur. i don’t intend for jon to suffer the consequences we have.”

the next afternoon, however, lyanna interrupts their sparring, quietly asking for jon to join her inside. jon frowns, but follows her all the same.

even aurelia is confused. “papa, is jon in trouble?” she asks, grey eyes staring up at arthur where she’s clinging to his leg.

she is five years old now, a perfect mix of himself and lyanna. arthur sits down, pulls her onto his lap. “no, sweet one, mother only wants to talk to him.”

it’s dusk when they reamerge. lyanna’s face is puffy with tears, but she assures her husband she’s fine. “talk to him, arthur. gods know he needs you now.”

jon is at the docks, sat beside darius’s boat, frowning at the horizon. arthur sits beside him. it’s a long while before either of them speak.

“i don’t know how much your mother told you,” arthur begins. “but i am sorry we didn’t tell you sooner. you had a right to know. perhaps we thought not telling you was still a way of protecting ourselves, even now. if you want to be angry at anyone, jon, be angry at me. yes, your mother may have made mistakes, but she was young and idealistic. i knew what i was doing the entire time, and i’ll live with that regret for the rest of my life. i’m not sure how she ever forgave me, or if you can. but i promise, everything i’ve ever done since, _everything_ , has been to protect you, your mother and now your sister. i understand if you want to hate someone, but please, let it be me. spare your mother, she has lost enough. i don’t think she would survive losing you, now.”

“must you be so selfless?”

arthur startles; jon is looking at him, almost bemused. “you are so quick to believe i would react harshly, you and mother. do you think so little of me?”

“jon, no -“

jon takes a deep breath. “look, i don’t really care about who my real father - and i’m reluctant to even call him that - is, whether he was highborn or royalty or not. all i know of this - _rhaegar_ is that he abandoned both his wives to die, and you and mother can never go home because of what he and his family did. he has done nothing for me. he _means_ nothing to me. _you_ are the one who raised me, who taught me how to use a sword, how to hunt, how to...be a good man. and you taught it is not my blood but my choices that define me. and i choose you, and mother, and aurelia, a thousand times.”

he quietens then. “besides, i’ve always known you were not my birth father.” arthur frowns, and jon continues, smiling sadly. “we look nothing alike; i would have the same colouring as aurelia if you were. i knew even before she was born. but i don’t care, truly. you’re the only father i know.”

arthur searches his face, finding nothing but sincerity and desperation. “and you are my son, jon. i am proud to call you that.” he tells him, and jon seems to sag in relief. “you’re truly not angry?”

“i’m not angry,” jon promises.

arthur stands up, brushing off his breeches. “i suspect your mother is worrying herself sick, and your sister misses us.” he offers jon hand, helping him up. “come, jon.” he puts on a hand on his sons shoulder, matching his smile. “let’s go home.”

vii.

in the early days, arthur would apologise to rhaegar’s ghost - purposely and often.

he apologised for not being at the trident, apologised for being dishonourable, for breaking his vows. he apologised for deserting his family, for giving up his name and house and _life_. he apologised for falling in love with lyanna.

he didn’t apologise for jon, though, and how he raised him, and loved him, and let him call him father. he never apologises for jon.

**Author's Note:**

> yeah i don’t like it but you know what at least i goddamn finished it and i can pretending this is what happened in canon


End file.
